The Majority of Israelis and Palestinians Want Peace

Sat 20th Oct 2012

Israel is calling upon the United Nations to stop the Estelle freedom ship from breaking the illegal blockade of Gaza and thus making us all complicit in depriving Gazans of their human rights. Israel may even take unilateral action in international waters in direct contravention of international law. The same behaviour by any other state would be considered piracy.

Israel continues to refuse to comply with more than one hundred UN Resolutions passed since 1948.

Why is this clearly one-sided situation allowed to continue? Israel appears to believe that UN Resolutions are like sandwiches at a buffet. If you like them you take them, if you do not then you leave them.

Within Israel and around the world there are many Jews who want to see a peaceful settlement with the Palestinians in order to legitimise their own claim to a homeland.

Sadly, these Jews are overwhelmed and silenced by the 'Settler Movement', by consecutive Israeli governments and by American pro-Israeli groups and lobbyists who wish to expand Israeli territory into Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and surrounding areas. AIPAC is an example of extreme government lobbying in America.

These groups have managed to stall any notion of peace by encouraging variously militaristic and economic wars against any Arab or Muslim country which might conceivably have the strength to stand up to Israeli expansionist policies.

Cases in point include Iraq, Iran, Syria and Lebanon.

Iraq has been destroyed; Iran is being set up for a military war following an aggressive economic sanctions; Lebanon has suffered from Israel's proxy wars and Syria has descended into internecine war.

The constant denigration of, and misinformation about Islam and Jihad, also appear to be part of the pro-Israeli camp's strategy to avoid any kind of meaningful and lasting peace in the Middle East in which Israel might not be the strongest force but part of a region where all states have an equal stake.

Fortunately for those of us who believe in a just peace, there are numerous communities of Jews and Muslims who, despite all the odds stacked up against them, live side by side, are respectful of each other’s beliefs and culture and do not wish to be separated.

These small oases of harmony must be nurtured and expanded across the world as well as within Israel and Palestine. Morocco has both Muslims and Jews living side by side - a situation which has existed since the Christian forces of Ferdinand and Isabella forced both communities out of Spain to satisfy their Christian expansionist zeal.

There is no doubt that the Holocaust perpetrated in Europe was a completely avoidable evil had decent Christians and western allies stood up to Hitler and his cronies.

There is no doubt that the genocide in Palestine in the Occupied Territories and Gaza is also an avoidable evil which could be stopped if decent Christians, Jews and Muslims stood up to the Zionists within and outside the State of Israel.

In years to come will we be saying, as the post-Second World War generations did: "... but we didn't know it was happening..."

The evidence was there then. It is here now.

All you have to do is to look for it, read it, watch it and act upon it. Exert your democratic right to hold our leaders accountable, to elect those who are not afraid and to ensure that 'Never again!' applies to ALL peoples threatened by genocide and ethnic cleansing.